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Long video competition welcomes the new pattern, can Mango TV run on "Wave 4"?

Text/Tehran

Coopetition in business is always full of drama.

On April 7, Tencent Video and Douyin respectively issued cooperation announcements, announcing that they would explore the joint promotion of long and short videos and the secondary creation of short videos.

More importantly, a more open ecosystem is indeed building a better "springboard" for the development of both sides.

In Q3 and Q4 of 2022, iQiyi's quarterly subscription membership increased by more than 10 million for two consecutive quarters, and by the end of the year, the number of subscription members reached a record high of 120 million, replacing Tencent Video to sit on the throne of long video.

Echoing this, in Q4, iQIYI's member playing time has achieved unprecedented growth, and member revenue, operating profit, operating cash flow and free cash flow have also refreshed the platform's historical record.

It is difficult for Tencent Video not to be moved, and when it follows the trend after some review, it will undoubtedly make peers, especially Mango TV, feel pressure.

Mango's anxiety

Why do you say that?

It is true that it is not only Mango TV that is left behind in this huge "long and short promotion", but also Youku.

However, it should be noted that no matter how the wind changes, high-quality and stable content output is always the foundation and core competitiveness of long-form video platforms.

According to Yunhe data, in 2022, Youku's effective playback of dramas on the whole network ranked first in the year-on-year increase in long-term videos, and the effective playback of drama member content on the whole network increased only to iQiyi, reaching 36%. In Q1 of this year, under the successive promotion of "Youth Song Xing", "Ligong - Old Events in the Northeast", "Starfall Condensed into Sugar", "Invisible Team", etc., the effective playback of Youku's drama member content on the whole network still maintained a high growth.

Long video competition welcomes the new pattern, can Mango TV run on "Wave 4"?

On the other hand, Alibaba's financial report for the third quarter of fiscal 2023 (October to December 2022) shows that Youku has achieved a year-on-year reduction in losses for seven consecutive quarters by prudently investing in content and production capabilities and continuously improving operational efficiency and efficiency.

Youku is growing steadily, but Mango TV seems to be unable to find its way.

According to the 2022 annual performance express report disclosed by Mango Super Media, the effective membership scale of Mango TV reached 59.16 million at the end of the year, an increase of only 8.76 million compared with 2021.

While the growth of the number of members has basically bid farewell to the period of high growth, Mango TV's entire membership business revenue has also been exhausted. In 2022, the year-on-year growth rate of platform membership business revenue will be reduced from 13.3% in 2021 to 6.95%, and this growth is largely due to Mango TV's two price increases in 2022.

A more dangerous signal is that although "Riding the Wind and Waves 3" set the highest investment attraction in the variety show market in the first half of 2022 with 27 advertising cooperation customers, and "Breaking Through Thorns 2" also won the favor of more than 10 brands, Mango TV's advertising business revenue in the first three quarters still fell by 26.33% year-on-year, which dragged down the overall performance of Mango Super Media.

Long video competition welcomes the new pattern, can Mango TV run on "Wave 4"?

It is true that due to the dual impact of the macroeconomy and the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the domestic Internet advertising industry is collectively under pressure. But as the old saying goes, "iron still needs to be hard", and the impact of the environment cannot be avoided, but it is itself that can ultimately determine the direction of its own performance.

Also in Q3 2022, although iQiyi's advertising revenue also fell sharply by 25% year-on-year, with the continuous output of popular dramas such as "Canglan Tips" and "Punishment", iQiyi drove a significant increase in the number of members in the quarter, and created a 16% year-on-year increase in its content distribution revenue, thereby achieving a double increase in operating profit and market share.

Origin step

The size of the film and television audience is much larger than the variety show audience, and Mango TV knows this well, but it is always powerless.

According to Yunhe data, the effective broadcast of Mango TV's main dramas on the whole network in 2022 fell by 11% year-on-year, while the effective playback of member content increased by 21% year-on-year, but the total number of views was only 3.9 billion, less than one-tenth of iQiyi and Tencent Video. Not only that, in Yunhe's "2022 Serial Drama Effective Broadcast - Top 30 Screen Leaderboard", we still can't find a Mango TV solo broadcast work.

Mango TV's drama content competitiveness has not actually grown in 2022, and in Q1 of this year, in the extremely fierce drama melee on the long video platform, although Mango TV won a sense of existence with "Go to the Windy Place", it was too short and thin.

Long video competition welcomes the new pattern, can Mango TV run on "Wave 4"?

On Yunhe's "2023 Q1 Drama Effective Broadcast Top 20 Screens", iQiyi, Youku, and Tencent Video have 6, 4, and 3 solo broadcasts on the list, while Mango TV only has "Go to a Windy Place".

What is even more embarrassing is that as a heavyweight head project with Liu Yifei and Li Xian, the effective playback and market share of "Go to a Windy Place" are not as effective as Youku's self-made small-cost online drama "Youth Song Xing".

To a large extent, this is due to the lack of Mango TV membership scale, and the reason why Mango TV's membership scale growth will quickly enter the "bottleneck period" is closely related to its own content.

As far as Mango TV's next episode reserves are concerned, this vicious circle is difficult to end in a short period of time. On the other side of the story, Mango TV's e-commerce story with "Xiao Mang E-commerce" as the axis has not yet reached its climax, and it has already shown the intention of abruptly stopping.

The peak DAU of "Xiaomang E-commerce" in 2022 is only 2.06 million, which is still the background of Mango TV setting up multiple diversion entrances in the APP site.

The only one that is broken

Mango TV can still rely on only variety shows, so "Riding the Wind and Waves 4" has once again been pushed to the cusp.

#Sister Lang 4 Final Lineup# #Sister Lang 4 Recording List# #Autumn Porcelain Xuanchu Stage or Will Sing Unforgivable# #Xie Na Slim Twenty Pounds Variety Show Return Debut# #Pinru Ellie is not in a group#... Since entering April, with the continuous release of various news related to the recording guests, "Riding the Wind and Waves 4" has once again "lived" on Weibo hot search as desired, and the overall momentum is greater than ever.

Long video competition welcomes the new pattern, can Mango TV run on "Wave 4"?

As we all know, the IP of "Sister Lang" itself does not have long-term continuity, and if you want to continue to gain high attention, the focus is not on model innovation, but on the choice of guests and the collision of guests. Through the above hot search entries, we can clearly see that Mango TV has cut from guests to multi-dimensional exploration of variety show topics to warm up for itself.

But "the next Wang Xinling" is still full of uncertainty, and judging from the overall popularity and word-of-mouth trend of "Sister Lang 3", the "Wang Xinling effect" only makes users love the show for a short time.

According to Ai Man's data, the audience age of "Sister Lang 3" is mainly concentrated in 25-34 years old, and although the TGI index of activity level is about 100 on average (the advantages and disadvantages of a certain age group in all speakers, greater than 100 means higher than the ordinary level), but compared with similar popular variety shows, the TGI indicators of "Sister Lang 3" have not significantly exceeded the average line.

The winds of the market don't always blow to the side.

In 2020, when the first season of "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" was broadcast, Mango TV was still the only profitable platform in the long-form video industry, but this only one has long been broken one after another. iQiyi achieved four consecutive quarters of operating profitability in 2022, and Tencent Video's annual revenue in 2022 exceeded 10 billion yuan, and it has been profitable since October.

On this basis, the cooperation between Tencent Video and Douyin will test Mango TV's self-made and publicity capabilities, but I don't know if Mango TV is ready.

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